JSO steps up patrols after park shooting

First Coast High student killed at Northside park

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The search continues for a person who shot and killed one teenager and injured another at a party Friday night in a Northside park.

Police are also stepping up patrols in the park to help curb violence in the area in an effort that has been planned for some time. 

The shooting was reported in the woods at Sheffield Park and the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office has identified the teenager killed as Jaquon Reeves, who friends called "Quon."

Another teen, identified as Khalil Bryant was also shot but is expected to be OK.

Reeves was a football player at First Coast High School, and a friend of Reeves said he had a bright future ahead of him.

Friends also said that Reeves was a good kid, somebody who liked to have fun, hang out with his friends and play football. They said another tragedy involving a First Coast High School student so close to the last one is very hard to deal with.

Derrick Johnson, who played football and basketball with Reeves, said the high school sophomore kept the mood on the team light with jokes, the same way he was off the field. 

"He was funny. He kept everybody laughing. He was going to make sure everybody was straight and having a good time. He was that type of person," Johnson said.

Johnson was also at the party Friday night. He said a group of friends gathered at the park for a get-together to remember Johnnel Johnson, another First Coast High football player who was shot and killed a few weeks ago.

"Everybody is just devastated. Two losses in about three weeks," Johnson said. "It's happening so much, I don't know if it's going to stop."

Johnson said the teens were back in the woods near a lake a few hundred yards into the woods.

"You can see why kids would want to hang out back here. It's a wooded area, you have the lake right here, but the problem is, it's not lit," News4Jax crime and safety analyst Gil Smith said.

Some have said that a fence or barricade needs to be put up to keep people out of the woods, but Smith said that likely won't fix the problem. 

"There's so many routes out here through the woods. Kids are going to find out how to get back here. It's really not going to stop them, just putting a fence blocking that road," Smith said. "At night, the only thing you can do is put somebody on guard at night, but that's an added expense to the city.

Traci Touchton, who lives near the park, said she is surprised by what happened here Friday but admits that though her daughter has told her that kids meet out by the lake near the woods, she knows little about what goes on there. 

"I've never even been back there. I assume there's a pond, you see, like when I walk near the football fields, you see a lot of traffic going back down the road that says not to go back there but they do anyway," Touchton said.

Chad DeMarco, who also visits the park with his son to go fishing said that though the shooting is shocking, it's not going to keep him from coming to the park. He also said that with a JSO officer having recently moved into a house at the entrance to the park, he feels much safer.

"Since I've been coming here, most of the time I come here I see a police car in the driveway," DeMarco said. "I see a police a car over there now, I guess she just moved in a few weeks ago, good to have a sense of security out here now."

The Jacksonville Sheriff's Office is still asking f anyone with any information about the shooting to call CrimeStoppers at 1-866-845-TIPS.

JSO said the other teen injured in the shooting, who sources say is Khalil Bryant, is expected to survive.
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